Privacy question about Bittorrent File System (BTFS) - are shards of uploaded files encrypted?

in #btfs3 years ago (edited)

I've spent a good bit of time searching PreSearch (referral link) this evening, and I haven't found an answer to a question I would like to answer.

In one form, my question is, this: "Are files stored in the BTFS network safe from inspection by the owners of the hosting devices?" Or, asked another way, are the file contents encrypted with a strong algorithm?

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Pixabay license, source

This web site says:

For each file uploaded to BTFS network, we divided and replicated the file into 30 shards. Thanks to Reed-Solomon encoding, the file is safe and retrievable even if 20 of the 30 shards are lost.

This web site says:

On the other hand, BTFS allows users to upload their files and the system automatically splits them into 30 seperate shards, which are hashed and hosted by 30 selected hosts, ensuring no single user has access to the entire file.

And this web site says:

Data to be on the BTFS nodes will be split into a number of file shards, then encrypted and hosted on nodes across the globe.

Here are three videos that explain Reed-Solomon codes:
1:


2


3


In the first video, it is clear that someone with access to a shard, but no access to the encoding matrix or its inverse would still be able to inspect part of the file. However, I'm not sure if that applies to all Reed-Solomon codes, or just his specific example.

So, we can say that at most, a BTFS host would only have access to inspect 1/30 of a file, maybe less. However, Reed-Solomon codes are intended for error correction, not privacy. So, back to the question, can anyone tell me how securely file shards are encrypted when stored on hosts in the BTFS network?

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I think that the answer to this question could be given correctly by @justyy or @steemchiller since they are advanced developers and know more about code than we do.

I have always thought that learning a little of the Java or Python C ++ programming language would help me a little to get a job on the internet until I get to do an intermediate programming course but unfortunately I realized that I am a bit clumsy at learning all the commands.

Thanks for tagging those two. I'm surprised it's so difficult to find this answer. I'm pretty sure that the contents of the shards are hidden from the host, but would really like to read an authoritative description of how that's accomplished.

In the end you will have to ask this question in a cryptographic forum, to see if a developer gives you an answer.

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